Bauchi Assembly adopts motion to combat rising cybercrime with stringent measures

Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, Abubakar Suleiman has decried the rate at which youths in the state are indulging in cybercrime in recent times stressing that urgent and stringent measures must be taken to curb the trend.

The House at the Tuesday plenary unanimously adopted the motion on the need to introduce measures that will deter youths from further indulgence in cybercrime.

The Speaker was contributing to a motion brought by the Member representing Kirfi Constituency, Hon. Habibu Umar called on the State Government to formalize procedures that will guard and guide public subscription to online related programmes in order to reduce the rate of fraud perpetrated on the net as a result of poverty and public ignorance.

Leading a debate on the motion, Hon. Habibu Umar said that transactions via the internet are currently an indispensable part of modern society however, the interface is replete with dubious software designers who are bent on using the net to satisfy their selfish interests.

He noted that public ignorance is the major advantage used by the accomplices to perpetrate their criminality in which unsuspecting individuals fall prey to such wittingly wrapped and high-handed cybercrime and more worrisome the number keeps on increasing by the day.

Habibu Umar further observed that there seemed to be no specific and publicly recognized anointed centre being used by the government as a sanctuary point for public subscription to help minimize the effect of the monster as much as possible.

According to him, “National Centre for Cyber Crime Control is seemingly inaccessible to numerous victims of the problem. In other words, the stringent protocols associated with the procedures of reaching such a centre together make the effort very unfriendly and cumbersome to be accessed by the public, particularly those living in the rural areas.”

The lawmaker added that, “Being a statutory body responsible for offering defensive mechanisms that would guard the public against all negativities, it is important to act on this problem with a view to reducing it significantly. Most frightening aspect of the problem is that the orchestrators of this impersonal and diabolic cyber crime take advantage of “free access” public window to exploit them and unfortunately escape to celebrate the gain with impunity.”

He therefore requested that a unit for the purpose of checkmating cybercrime should be created in the state and mandated to liaise with the national and international cybercrime control bodies to help it stem the tide of the monster in the state.

He suggested that a standing committee in the House of Assembly may be mandated to regular oversight the unit and report back findings and recommendations in relation to the activities of the unit to the House for further legislative considerations.

Habibu Umar added that all cyber cafés in the State must register their activities with the State Government and the State must create a common directory that will pool all legally functional cafés together so as to be able to track their operations and monitor them against any unruly connivance that may perpetrate the crime as much as possible.

He also prayed that an ad-hoc Committee may be formed to embark on physical tour round the country in order to directly pay a special visit to organizations that are using the internet to reach out public so that their true identity, correct URL and operational boundaries will be established for public notice and only certified cyber café’s with relevant registration certificates would be allowed to carry out any form of online registration exercise in the State.

In his response, the Speaker said that the issue of cybercrime is rapidly increasing in the State.

He however observed that the issue of cybercrime is included in the exclusive legislative list which means only the Federal Government can handle but the State Government can assist in reducing the problem by establishing a unit to observe the activities of all online operators in the State and liase with the Federal Government in checkmating cybercrimes.

In his contribution, Hon. Dr Nasiru Ahmed Ala representing Chinade/Madara Constituency said that countries all over the world are trying to be technologically developed and Nigeria cannot be an exception, however, the Country is producing jobless children which as a result forced them into fraudulent activities on the internet.

He therefore stressed the need to have a measure that will guide and guard the people of the State against all fraudulent online activities.

Nasiru Ahmed Ala suggested that since the matter has some constitutional issues, it should be referred to a committee to look at the motion and advise the Honourable on the appropriate measures to take so that it intelligently looks at it before taking action.

Hon. Auwal Hassan representing Shira Constituents suggested that the House should wait for formation of Standing Committees of the House so that the matter would be referred to the relevant Committee for further legislative actions.

Hon. Ibrahim Tanko Burra representing Burra Constituency suggested that an ad-hoc committee should rather be formed so that it can handle the matter and when the standing committees are formed the matter can be transferred to the relevant Committee.

However, the Speaker ruled that since there is no urgency on the matter, it should be on hold until the standing committees of the House are formed and the House unanimously adopted the motion.